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Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

sciencemag.org

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Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#21

Post by sigstoat »

fit2rule wrote: post #16
ogre_codes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We (Europeans) can hardly do it for 200 years .. It's hard to compare because fundamentally writing changed everything. Not just in Europe, but everywhere writing became common, oral histories more or less ceased. Photography and later the internet is changing this again.

And by way of corollary, if you have a strong and resolute oral tradition that can stand the test of 10's of thousands of years, writing systems seem entirely inefficient.

seems like selection bias. we’ve no idea how much has been lost. or whether or not the oral historians of X thousand years ago would be satisfied with how their tales have made it down the ages.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#22

Post by osaatcioglu »

I remembered the article[1] talking about data as its own being, even maybe a separate consciousness. And, then I thought a story dated back that many years should be, arguably, the oldest preserved data that the intelligent life on earth ever had so far. I am excluding the language itself, of course.

So, this makes it the most ancient branch of Dataome. It is quite cool to observe the baby steps of the next evolutionary path.

[1]https://nautil.us/issue/65/in-plain-sight/the-selfish-dataom...

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#23

Post by hug »

jbattle wrote: post #9

I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano? As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape. I can't find…

A semi-translated version of the story of Budj Bim: https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/nyernila/dh...

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#24

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Aren't these the people who have a hunting dance, with one section detailing the hunting of a giant bird on two legs with giant claws? Bringing to mind the Dromornis stirtoni, or "demon duck of doom" which has been extinct for 37,000 years.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#25

Post by c3534l »

So there's a story about a volcano and there happens to be an old volcanic formation nearby, therefor the story depicts an actual event an implausibly long time ago. I find this as believable as Noah's Ark because there was a big flood once. Show us more than just a single coincidence on an entire continent of peoples.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#26

Post by JoeAltmaier »

c3534l wrote: post #25

So there's a story about a volcano and there happens to be an old volcanic formation nearby, therefor the story depicts an actual event an implausibly long time ago. I find this as believable as Noah's Ark because there was a big flood once. Show us more than just a single coincidence on an entire continent of peoples.

Read the article? There was more than that.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#27

Post by DennisP »

fit2rule wrote: post #15
DennisP wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes. Could you expand on this?

Its related to the kinship system: https://sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aborigi... There is a recent paper which dives into this in more detail and reveals the surprising alignment with modern crypto principles based on a more rigorous analysis, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. It is frustratingly difficult topic to search for... Essentially, clans and tribes would teach their representative…

As a software developer and crypto enthusiast with a degree in cultural anthropology, I would love to read that paper.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#28

Post by 2019-nCoV »

fit2rule wrote: post #15
DennisP wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes. Could you expand on this?

Its related to the kinship system: https://sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aborigi... There is a recent paper which dives into this in more detail and reveals the surprising alignment with modern crypto principles based on a more rigorous analysis, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. It is frustratingly difficult topic to search for... Essentially, clans and tribes would teach their representative…

It's pure aggrandisation to compare such rudimental human behaviour with crypto key exchange.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#29

Post by basicplus2 »

jbattle wrote: post #9

I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano? As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape. I can't find…

The story talks of the lava coming out of the volcano.. so it is clearly active at least

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#30

Post by crispinb »

jbattle wrote: post #9

I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano? As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape. I can't find…

They're only suggesting it as a possibility to be explored. I think it arises from the teeth/lava story detail, given there seem to have been no significant subsequent eruptions.

Certainly there's been good prior evidence of indigenous Australian myths having remarkable longevity, and their cultural means of maintaining & transmitting myths seem to have been optimised for accuracy. But 37,000 years would be quite something.

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